“It’s not as easy as Japanese people think” The “darkness of interests” that causes the disappearance of foreign technical intern trainees, illegal employment, and crimes The Expert Council’s “Development Work System” proposal is a makeshift “deception.”

On November 24, 2023, the government’s panel of experts, which has been considering the ideal form of the system, compiled a final report on November 24, 2023, in response to a series of disappearances and related incidents of technical intern trainees who were placed in harsh work environments. We recommend abolishing the current system and creating a new system, the “Development Work System,” aimed at securing and developing human resources, but will this solve the problem? Yasuhiro Idei, a journalist who has been investigating the issue of trainees and foreign students for many years, says, “This is nothing more than a “replacement” of the current system, and does not solve any of the fundamental problems.”

The basics of the system remain the same.

On November 24th, a government panel of experts who had been discussing the review of the foreign technical intern training system met.final reportI have summarized. The report recommends “abolishing” the much-maligned apprenticeship system and creating a system called “developmental employment.” The government is expected to submit a related bill to next year’s regular session of the Diet, taking into account opinions from the Liberal Democratic Party and others.

However, even if the bill is enacted and the name is changed to “developmental employment,” the basics of the system will not change. As is the case today, trainees come to Japan through a temporary staffing agency in their home country called a “sending agency,” andsupervisionmanagementorganization” to a place of employment.mediationMediationdo. If you work for three years, you can change your residence status to “Specified Skilled Worker,” and you can also work in Japan for a long period of time.

In this review, the issue that drew the most attention from those involved was the issue of “transfer,” which allows employees to move from one workplace to another within the same job. Currently, trainees are not allowed to transfer unless there is a problem with their place of employment. However, under the new system, it seems that workers will be recognized as long as they have been employed for at least a year and have basic Japanese language skills.

Two out of three missing trainees are Vietnamese

As of the end of June this year, there were 358,159 foreigners working in Japan using the apprenticeship system, and it has become a tool to supply workers for jobs where there is a shortage of Japanese workers.

On the other hand, there has been strong criticism of the system. Human rights violations such as assaults on trainees are frequently reported, and there is no end to the number of trainees disappearing from their workplaces. In fact, the number of missing trainees in 2022 was 9,006, the second highest on record.

“Interns disappear from the workplace because there is no freedom to transfer.”

In response to these points, it was decided to ease transfer restrictions. There is no doubt that the disappearance issue had an influence on the “abolition” of the apprenticeship system. So, will the new system solve the problem?